


The Last Place You Look

by foobar137



Series: World War II with Soulmate Marks [1]
Category: Historical Fiction, World War II AU - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Japan, Japantown, Nicknames, Post-WWII occupation of Japan, Racism, Soul Mate Marks, South Dakota, United States Marine Corps, post-war era, soul marks, soul mates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 11:53:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1778074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foobar137/pseuds/foobar137
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From Tumblr discussion of AUs where a person's soul mate's name appears on their body at some point. What if you can't read it? A young man from South Dakota comes of age in the 1940s with characters he doesn't recognize on his arm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Everyone knew Tommy Jensen was odd. Everyone in Badger, South Dakota said, “That boy is just…different.”

He didn’t want to do the same things as everyone else. He didn’t want to go the same places. He had no interest whatsoever in taking over the family farm and settling down with his soul mate.

But then, everybody knew that was going to be a problem as soon as he was born. One look at the inside of his arm, and the faint unfamiliar symbols on them, and everyone knew that settling down just wasn’t happening. Nobody in town could read them.

Tommy had asked everyone what they meant. The closest he’d gotten had been when Ole Johnson had said, ‘Looks like Chinee writing to me.’ Eventually, Tommy had just given up and decided it meant ‘no soul mate’. He forgot about it.

The war started when he was fourteen. It had been going on for a couple years in Europe, and France had fallen to the Nazis. But for the US, it started on December 7, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

Tommy volunteered as soon as he could, joining the Marines. When they asked him for his soul mate’s name while filling out the enlistment papers, he said it was illegible.

The atomic bombs were dropped as he finished basic training. By the time he could be deployed, the war was over.

They sent him to the Philippines first, and then on to Japan as part of the occupation force. He found himself guarding a navy base outside Tokyo.

The locals spoke little English, and he spoke no Japanese. But he got to know the ones who came and went, and they got to know him as well. There was Kimura-san, the representative of the local civilian government, who came to talk to the military governors. Nakamura-san, the grocer, who made sure the base had supplies. And his favorite, Yamaguchi-san, a pretty young woman who did laundry for most of the officers.

He chatted with Yamaguchi-san as she went through; she’d blush prettily and giggle at him. He learned that she was supporting three younger siblings; her father had died on Guadalcanal, and her mother had been killed by a bombing raid.

They spent a few minutes every day, practicing each other’s languages at each other, and Tommy began to wonder if, maybe, she might meet him away from the gate. She couldn’t be his soul mate - he didn’t have one, he knew it. But maybe they could spend time together until she found hers.

He was trying to figure out how to talk to her as he let her out of the gate, when she paused and asked, in her poor English, “Coruporal Jensen, may I ask…favor?”

"Absolutely," he responded automatically.

She looked at him, confused.

"Yes," he said, and she smiled.

"I read no Engurish. What is this word?" She bared her forearm, and he read the faint letters of her soul mate.  _Thomas Arthur Jensen_.

"I…I…" he stumbled, trying to figure out what to say. "Thomas Arthur Jensen. It’s my name." He pulled up his sleeve, showing her his own arm. "I never knew what this was."

With a smile, she traced three lines with a lower line connecting them, and a square, saying, “Yamaguchi.” A box with six subsections and a couple lines under it, and what looked like a crossed number seven, “Michiko.”

"Michiko? Is that your name?" he asked. She nodded eagerly.

"It’s a pretty name," he said. "Almost as pretty as you are."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The characters on his arm should be 山口典子 if I'm translating correctly.


	2. Chapter 2

Tommy finished his deployment in Japan, then took Michiko back to the States with him. Her younger brothers had moved on to their own families, but her younger sister, Satomi, was still a minor and came with them. When he asked if Satomi’s soul mate’s name was in English, Michiko just said it wasn’t her place to tell.

They settled in San Jose’s Japantown, where they used their savings to buy a small laundry for Michiko to run with Satomi’s help. He found a job working night shift security for a nearby bank.

They got onto a regular schedule - he’d arrive home from work just a couple hours before Michiko and Satomi went to the laundry for the day. He’d catch some sleep and bring them lunch, helping out around the laundry for the afternoon before it closed. He’d leave from there to go to work. On weekends, he met up sometimes with the Nisei veterans at the local VFW hall. They’d been a little cold to him at first, until he’d explained why he’d ended up in Japantown. They told him about the camps they’d been sent to, and service in Europe; in return, he told them about his time in Japan.

About a year after they moved there, Michiko told him with a shy smile that she was pregnant. He was thrilled, and sent a letter to South Dakota to tell them. As with every other letter he’d sent after the one telling them about Michiko, it was returned to him, “Refused by addressee.”

When she was about four months pregnant, he got to the laundry just in time to hear shouting. He heard Satomi’s voice saying, “You go now.”

“It’s my country, dammit,” a drunken man said.

An unfamiliar man said, “Leave before I make you leave.”

Just as Tommy reached the door, the drunken man said, “You and what army? Her?”

Tommy went through the door and said, “Sorry, I'm not army, I'm a Marine."

Satomi was fending off one man with a mop, while a short man with a broad build and short brown hair stood beside her. The man on the other side of the broom, evidently the man they were arguing with, was taller and thinner, but still shorter than Tommy was. He jammed his hat on his head and stormed out the door in a huff as Satomi lowered her mop and sagged in relief.

"Thanks for the save, Marine," the man said.

"Thanks for protecting my sister-in-law," Tommy said. "Satomi, are you okay?"

" _Hai_ ," she said, lapsing into Japanese. She looked over at the man, and a smile started to cross her face.

"Tom Jensen. Nice to meet you," Tommy said, putting his hand out.

“Bob Farrell,” the man said, stepping forward and shaking his hand.

Over Bob’s shoulder, he saw the smile fade from Satomi’s face, and she sighed in disappointment.

* * *

Tommy had invited Bob over for dinner over the weekend, in gratitude, and he'd turned out to be a swell guy. He was twenty, just a couple years older than Satomi, and worked at a local auto dealership as a janitor.

Tommy watched Bob interact with Satomi, confused. They seemed to like each other quite a bit, but whenever Satomi realized how close to him she was, she backed off. Bob didn't even seem to be chasing her, they just ended up together as conversation ebbed and flowed.

That night, lying in bed with Michiko, he asked, "Satomi's soul mate's name is in English, isn't it?"

"Yes," Michiko said. "But it is not Bob."

"Is it Robert?" he asked after a moment.

"No. It is Ev...Evu...Ev-er-et," she said, stumbling through the name. While her English had improved considerably, and he’d learned Japanese to the point where their conversations sometimes drifted between languages without them noticing, unusual names still caused problems for her.

"Everett?"

"Yes."

"Poor Satomi. She really looked like she was getting along well with Bob, too."

" _Hai. Sou desu._ "

* * *

Bob still stopped by occasionally, and Tommy noticed that Satomi looked sad most of the time. She'd just turned eighteen, and were it not for the obvious attraction between her and Bob, he'd say it was just hormones, but clearly something wasn't going right for them.

One Saturday afternoon, as Tommy grilled burgers in the front yard, Bob stopped by. "Can I ask you a really personal question?" Bob asked. Tommy nodded.

"Your soul mate mark, for Michiko...is it in Japanese characters?"

"Yep. Confused the heck out of me as a kid. I had no idea what they could mean. Thought they meant I'd never have a soul mate."

Bob sighed. "If you saw Satomi's name in Japanese, would you recognize it?"

"Yep. I filled out enough paperwork getting permission for her to move here." Tommy paused, then said, "But before you ask, I've been told that Satomi's soul mate's name isn't Bob. Or Robert."

Bob looked up at him, then smacked himself in the forehead. "I never thought of that."

Tommy flipped the burgers, raising an eyebrow speculatively.

"My first name isn't Robert. It's Everett. Everett Robert Farrell, Jr. My family called me Bob to keep me from being confused with my father. It never occurred to me that it'd be a problem."

Tommy paused, then asked, "May I see your arm?"

Bob rolled up his sleeve, and Tommy recognized the characters immediately. "That says Yamaguchi Satomi. I think we need to get things straightened out between you two." He walked to the front door, leaned in and yelled, "Hey Satomi, can you come here for a minute?"

She appeared at the door a moment later, Michiko following out of curiosity. Satomi saw Bob and appeared to freeze, edging away from him.

"I don't think you two have been formally introduced. Bob, this is my sister-in-law, Yamaguchi Satomi. Satomi, this is Everett Robert Farrell, Jr., called Bob."

Satomi's eyes got wide. "You are Everett?" she asked.

Bob nodded and showed her his forearm. "I've been told this is your name. Yours has mine?"

She launched herself at him, and he caught her in mid-air, swinging her around. Tommy put his arm around his pregnant wife, who nestled into his side to fit just perfectly.

"I was so stupid about this, forgetting to tell you my legal name," Bob said, setting Satomi down again and looking into her face. "Can you forgive me?"

Tommy was reasonably sure the kiss Satomi gave him in response qualified as a 'yes'.

 

 


End file.
